BRETT STYLE: : Brothers Make Return to Minors in a Major Way

Baseball’s Brett Brothers are back in the bush leagues.

Only this time, George, Ken, Bobby and John are owners instead of prospects trying to make the majors.

Led by Bobby, the businessman of the quartet, the Bretts bought the Spokane Indians in October and the Tri-Cities Triplets in February. Spokane is a San Diego Padre affiliate, while Tri-Cities--Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland in South Central Washington--is not affiliated with a major league organization. Both teams play in the Washington division of the eight-team Class A Northwest League.

Neither team is playing .500 ball, but the Bretts have rejuvenated the franchises. Minor league owners have little control over the talent of the players they are given by the parent clubs, but they have considerable input as to the marketing of the product.

“It’s (owning the teams) been a little more fun than I thought it would be,” Bobby said. “But it’s not only been fun. It’s a business you can make money at. The Tri-Cities team was a fixer-upper, but there is potential (in a season) for Tri-Cities to make a $50,000 profit.”

Spokane has set a league attendance record, and the Bretts expect the club to make a profit of approximately $50,000 this season.

When the Bretts bought Tri-Cities in February, the team was in danger of folding. With the season only four months away, the league faced the possibility of playing with only seven teams.

“If someone hadn’t bought Tri-Cities, we would have had to play Gonzaga (University) and semi-pro competition for approximately 15 games. I didn’t want that cloud over the league. It would have been bad for credibility,” Bobby said. The team will lose money this year, but the Bretts are hopeful they can attract a buyer and make a profit on the sale of the team.

The Bretts’ association with the minor leagues has come a long way since they were mere diamonds in the rough. Now, John is 39, Ken is 37, Bobby is 35 and George is 32.

All four spent time in the minor leagues, though only George and Ken made it to the majors. George, of course, is the perennial All-Star third baseman for the Kansas City Royals. Ken, whose career ended in 1982, now is a broadcaster for the Seattle Mariners.

John Brett, a one-time third baseman who is now a real estate contractor in Manhattan Beach, had a great arm and lots of power at El Segundo High, but never made it to the big leagues because he didn’t make enough contact.

“I thought I’d be in the big leagues,” John said. “Next thing I know I’m released. I didn’t know where my next hamburger was coming from.”

Bobby, an outfielder at Cal Poly Pomona, played in the Royals’ organization in 1972, but the lack of a major league arm and power led him into real estate.

“When I was in the minors,” he said, “I could sort of see the handwriting on the wall.”

In a sense, it is back in the minors again--albeit Bobby spends the most time on the scene.

“I follow the scores in USA Today,” George said. “That’s usually the only paper I can get that runs the Northwest League scores. When something good happens, I hear about it from Bobby.”

When George heard that the Indians had a sellout and league record crowd of 10,208 against Everett on Aug. 1, he told Bobby: “All right! What was the bank deposit?”

Bobby, who also represents George in his endorsement and contract negotiations, said: “I call and send George clippings, but it’s hard for him to relate to it as much.”

The obvious question regarding George’s interest in the Indians and Triplets involves the potential for a conflict of interest: a major league player owning a minor league team.

“We discussed it when the matter came up,” said Richard Levin, director of news for major league baseball. “His involvement does not violate any conflict of interest.”

There is no conflict because the Kansas City Royals and the two minor league teams are in different leagues.

And besides . . .

“Bobby runs the whole thing,” John said. “We always talked about buying a team. He’s made a lot of money in real estate and he’s always had ideas. He’s an eager beaver. So Bobby put it together. He’s the only one of the brothers who went to college, so I guess he should be doing it. . . . Bobby said: ‘This is how much money I want from you,’ and I put in what he said. I’m excited about it. But when I go to a game in Spokane, I’m not worried if the ushers are in place. I have a good time and sip a beer.”

Bobby is the majority owner of the Indians and the driving force behind both teams. Ken officially is the president in Tri-Cities because Bobby couldn’t be president of two teams in the same league.

Bobby talks to Indian General Manager Tom Leip at least once a day, goes to Spokane a couple of times a month and took the first trip of the season with the Indians.

Many of these players are just out of high school. One 17-year-old player was quite upset because he was hitting just .150 and his average was flashed on the scoreboard every time he came to the plate.

“I made an executive decision,” Bobby said. “If anybody is hitting below .150, we wouldn’t put their average on the board. We would just put their name and position.”

Ken does not play an active role in running the teams, but he can relate to the low minors. Last summer, he managed the Utica Blue Sox, a co-op team in the New York-Pennsylvania League.

“I think my experiences in Utica have helped us a lot at Tri-Cities,” said Ken, who mentions Utica in his beer commercial appearances.

Said Ken: “The season was set to start June 17. I arrived on June 10. I had never been associated with a co-op team before. When I arrived, there were zero players. But we did have a verbal commitment from teams that said they would send players. On June 11, there were no players. On June 12, no players. June 13, no players. June 14, no players. Now I’m starting to get frustrated. There was nothing to do in Utica. I’d already set up my office.

“On the afternoon of June 15, we got 10 players. On June 16, we got one or two more. By opening night, we had 13 players, including four pitchers. Our shortstop arrived in the third inning of the opener and he played.”

The Blue Sox got off to an 0-6 start and the team was hitting .190.

Taking a cue from Ken’s experiences at Utica, Bobby got an early start in his attempt to line up players for Tri-Cities. Because the Bretts did not buy the Triplets until February, there was a lot of last-minute hustling.

The day before Tri-Cities’ season opener, Triplet pitching coach Bruce Kison, a former major league pitcher with the Pirates, Angels and Red Sox, was complaining about the state of his staff.

“I told Bruce you have no idea how good you have it,” Ken said. “I told him about last year at Utica. About what it was like to go out on the field with only 10 baseballs, and none of them were white.”

Bobby Brett will never be compared to Charlie Finley.

And that’s a compliment.

The Bretts paid about $140,000 to purchase the Spokane franchise and around $80,000 for Tri-Cities. But that was just the start of their investment.

“They don’t try to nickel and dime anything,” said Tom Romenesko, the Padres’ minor league director. “They are running a class operation.”

They pride themselves on doing things in a first-class manner.

“You never hear ‘How much does it cost?’ out of Bobby Brett,” Leip said. “Their attitude about baseball is to have an image like the Dodgers and Royals. The Bretts want a ballpark so immaculate you can eat off the ground. They want warm, enthusiastic employees. . . .

“Bobby’s role model is Dodger Stadium.”

The Bretts have spent about $60,000 to refurbish Indians Stadium. The county has added an additional $120,000 to upgrade the stadium.

The Indians’ 10,000-seat stadium--the largest in the Northwest League--was painted this year for the first time since 1979. The colors are red, white and blue.

The concession areas were renovated, and 860 major league-style box seats replaced folding chairs. Ushers and stadium workers wear Indian outfits instead of street clothes.

The Bretts have not shortchanged their players. Not by any means.

They bought new uniforms of major league quality and provided the players with jackets and wool caps instead of mesh caps. The Indians’ new uniforms--blue and white with red numbers--are patterned after the ones the Dodgers’ Triple-A club in Spokane used to wear. Bobby also tossed in a Kansas City Royal royal blue stripe to keep George happy.

Bobby originally wanted to put names on the back of the unforms, but found it to be too impractical because players are constantly coming and going.

“I still want to do that,” Bobby said. “When you feel good and look good, you play good.”

It’s no surprise that the Padres are so happy to be working with the Bretts in Spokane.

“People were pretty excited when they heard the Bretts were coming to town,” said Evan Venfel, president of the Indians’ booster club.

And the Bretts were pretty excited to get the franchise in Spokane. They believe they were getting a choice franchise in a desirable location with a population base of 180,000 in Spokane and 365,000 in the surrounding areas.

Class A franchises are more readily available than Triple-A franchises and, according to Bobby Brett, are preferable from a financial standpoint. They have the advantage of starting the season in mid-June, unlike Triple-A teams that start in mid-April. That means Class A teams miss the cold, rainy Northwest weather and are able to capitalize on children being out of school.

When a Class-A franchise is affiliated with a major league team, the owner has a much easier job.

The Padres have a player development contract with the Bretts in Spokane. They draft players, pay their salaries and have the rights to them. San Diego provides the manager, players, coaches, trainers, bats, balls and uniforms. The Bretts are responsible for the upkeep of the stadium and for promotion and advertising.

“Basically, the screen behind home plate separates what they are responsible for and what we are responsible for,” Romenesko said. “That is the line of demarcation.”

The phone is the Bretts’ primary line of communication with the Padres.

“We have quite a bit of interaction with them,” Romenesko said. “They are an interesting group of people. And they want to do things right. Bobby has called on me in terms of doing things the right way. He hasn’t been like a George Steinbrenner figure.”

But, like Steinbrenner, the Bretts bought a team with a storied tradition--at least at the minor league level.

“Bobby bought smart,” said Leip, who was an assistant general manger in Eugene before Brett hired him. “Spokane was probably the plum in the country.”

Spokane traditionally has been a good baseball town, dating back to the days when the Dodgers had their Triple-A affiliate there from 1958-71. The Indians won division titles in 1967, ’68 and ’70.

Fans still tell stories about Spokane’s 1970 championship team, which started an infield of Steve Garvey (.319, 15 homers and 87 RBIs), Davey Lopes (.306), Bill Russell (.363) and Ron Cey (.328, 32 homers and 123 RBIs).

“This is still a Dodger town,” Stalwick said. “They are still loved here.”

In 1972, the Dodgers moved their Triple-A franchise to Albuquerque. Triple-A baseball returned in 1973, when the Portland Beavers moved to Spokane. They were associated with four major league teams--Texas, Milwaukee, Seattle and California--before the Padres bought the franchise in 1983 and turned it into a Class A Northwest League team.

The fans would like to see Triple-A baseball return to Spokane, and Bobby is aware of that clamor.

“If something develops two or three years from now,” Bobby Brett said, “we’ll look at it. Right now, we’re trying to run the best Class A group around.”

June 17, 1986: A crowd of 9,480 fans attended the Indians’ home opener against Tri-Cities. For the Bretts, it was an ironic twist of scheduling.

Spokane won, 5-2.

“I usually root for Spokane,” Bobby said. “But if the Triplets have lost a few in a row, I’ll root for them.”

Bobby, John and Ken were introduced before the game. The game was televised locally, which is quite unusual for Class A baseball, and Ken and Bobby each did an inning of color commentary. Since then, Bobby has become a regular on the team’s radio broadcasts.

That opening-night crowd set a Northwest League record, but the Indians topped it with 10,208 at their game against Everett on Aug. 1. It was Credit Union Night, and a majority of the fans got in free. It was still a historic crowd in a league that often draws 900 fans to a game.

The Indians have drawn more than 74,000 fans in 24 home games, which topped the previous league mark of 70,576 in 37 home games set by the Indians last season. Spokane has the average highest attendance among the 96 teams below Double-A.

And that record was set with a team that was 25-29, in third place and seven games behind first-place Bellingham in the Washington division through Monday. The Triplets were in fourth place, 17-36 and 15 1/2 games out of first.

“At Spokane, we play with the cards they give us,” Bobby said. “We really don’t have any control. I never realized how important winning was. We will be successful no matter how the team does. But if we win, it will be substantially better.”

Those sunlit boyhood dreams project you far beyond a drab clubhouse in Utica; you see yourself moving on winged spikes through carpeted, indeed hallowed, dressing rooms in Los Angeles or New York City.

--From “Good Enough to Dream,” a book by Roger Kahn that chronicled Utica’s 1983 season, when the author owned the team.

When John Brett watches George play at Royals Stadium, he likes to glance up at the owners’ box where Ewing Kauffman, the Royals chairman of the board, sits.

“You have to start somewhere,” John said. “Down the road, if things work, I’d like to have one of those boxes.”